Autumn into Spring
by Crookshanks22
Summary: In this sequel to 'A Romance, with Dragons,' Viktor finds love at last . . . and long shadows of the past. Set in Romania, Bulgaria, and Budapest in the aftermath of the second war.
1. Autumn in Bucharest

**Autumn into Spring**

Author note: "Autumn into Spring" is a sequel to "A Romance, with Dragons," which I recommend reading first. This is_ not_ a story for children. There is, I hope, a lot of love in this tale, but there are also many cruel blows dealt by life to both major and minor characters, and some readers will find some of the material upsetting.

My apologies in advance to anyone who's Romanian! The Muggle and magical worlds are largely distinct, and my depiction of the Romanian wizarding community is not intended to be a reflection on Muggle Romania. Rather, it's an exploration of another side of wizarding culture—one we don't see too much of at Hogwarts. That said, I am indebted to Tim Burford and Norm Longley, _The Rough Guide to Romania_ (Penguin, 2004) for my knowledge of Romanian Muggle history and geography.

* * *

**Chapter 1: Autumn in Bucharest**

If you go to Bucharest, now the Dark Lord's gone, if you go to Bucharest and walk from Piata Unirii up Boulevard Bratianu, if you wend your way through the Gypsy market in Strada Lipscani towards Stavropoleos Church, you will see a chain-mail fence. Look not over the fence but through it, bind your clothing to your body, think of magic, say a charm, and slip through the rusting links into Piata Centaura.

The centaur fountain has never worked, not since the First War. It stands majestic and desolate, littered with owl droppings and usually also with owls, hooting conversationally in the murky light. Be a good citizen and mutter, "Scourgify!" before you turn right to Maslan's Bookshop or left to the tiny branch of Gringotts (open daily, 10-2). Calica's Wand Shop has gone out of business (Death Eaters), as has Harghita Owl Emporium (Death Eaters), as has Bucegi Dragon Supplies (same). Walk up Strada Cornmare, past the shuttered shop windows, the shuttered offices of the _Drum Liber_, past the elegant façade of the Hotel Nai, now a brothel run by a skinny, tattooed Albanian. After a block and a half you will face a long, low, charmless concrete bunker: the Romanian Ministry of Magic.

Stand up straight, empty your pockets, and hold your wand limply in your left hand, please. Queue up, hold still, and wait. Security is tight, for the war was a bad war here.

When the guard waves you through, when you walk with brisk nervous steps down the charmless concrete hall, don't pass the unlabelled wooden door to your left, but seize the handle and walk through. Step boldly through the dark little anteroom into the totally unexpected, totally charming, glowing golden library.

Here, at the desk, you will find a startled young woman named Marina Vasik. She will lift her large dark eyes and her tattered phoenix feather quill from the parchment on her desk. She will tilt her pointed chin under the weight of her heavy dark coronet braids, and she will ask you your business. If she likes you, if she decides to trust you, she will tell you gently and sheepishly that it was been two weeks and a half since any soul deigned to consult the Romanian National Wizarding Library.

Two patrons in a month is a busy month for Marina.

Days are long, though life is short, for Marina.

At twenty-four she looks nineteen and feels thirty-five. Romania is not a gentle place, and life has not been kind. She spends her days sitting—unpaid, because the bankrupt Ministry has no funds to pay her—in a library that no one visits. She dusts the books, she arranges the books, she reads the books. She stares into space and thinks up things that ought to be done if only anyone in this daft impoverished country of pessimists and vampires and Death Eaters could be persuaded to take an interest in the law. She spends her empty nights teaching herself a little English, a little Italian, a little Hungarian from outdated tourists' primers, bought second-hand, cheap, almost free, from Muggle bookshops. Meticulously, fretfully, she scrubs her modest flat and cuddles her pet Kneazle. She spends her weekends hanging around her brother Slovadan and his friends at the Transylvanian Dragon Research and Breeding Facility, baking cakes and pies for the "boys"—one of whom is thirty-eight—and flying out to look at the Longhorns.

Sometimes, in the library that no one visits, Marina takes a small hand mirror out of her pocketbook and studies her face, patting dark heavy curls anxiously into her coronet braids, rubbing the circles around her eyes as if she could rub them away. And she thinks, I look nineteen, I really do, but what does that matter if I'm twenty-four, if I feel thirty-five, if I'm to spend the rest of my life sitting in a silent dusty library, writing fairytale laws that will never be passed, annotating the International Ban on Dueling that our Minister—unlike every Minister of Magic in civilized Europe—will never sign.

Now and then, of a Saturday morning, she slips out to a Muggle pastry shop. She orders a cup of white coffee and, if she can afford it, a brioche. She lingers over the Muggle newspapers, which Ministry of Magic employees aren't supposed to do, and she thinks, no wonder we're not in the E.U.

She sips her white coffee and she picks at her brioche and she thinks that her grandmother—the Transylvanian one—would turn in her grave if she knew that her only granddaughter was sitting in a Muggle pastry shop reading a Muggle newspaper article about the E.U.

It makes her sad, but it doesn't stop her from reading the newspapers. Sometimes she reads the English ones too.

For years, from her early teens, Marina has been dogged by a sense that she is innovating, that she is transfiguring herself, that she is creating a sort of life and a sort of career that have never existed before, not for witches, not for poor ones, not in Romania. It is not a pleasant sensation. But in a life marked by scarcity, need has been the mother of invention. Looking forward is hard, but looking back is worse.

In the eighteenth century, in the nineteenth century, in the years before the Grindelwald War, Vasiks were to Romanian Longhorns what MacFusties are to Hebridean Blacks. But time passes, and fortunes ebb with the tides. Vasiks, like pureblood families the world over, are dying out. Slovadan and Marina are the youngest and the last, save for some cousins who run a small and not very reputable reservation in Ruthenia. And Slovadan and Marina are different—almost disowned—because their blood is not quite pure.

For centuries, till her grandmother's day, the Vasik family consisted solely of men who were Dragon Keepers and women who married their cousins and raised their sons to keep dragons. Marina's mother was the first of the new breed, a half-blood, a foreigner, a Slovenian who married in, an improbably well-educated woman who spoke German and French and who taught those languages to her children, after a fashion, before she was overcome by darkness. A weakling, Marina thinks now, a woman who believed in wishes and not in duties, a woman who thought magic was charming, a witch who had no dragons in her blood.

Marina does not keep dragons, and Marina has no sons. But still, she thinks, but still, she has dragons in her blood.

This is what she is thinking when Viktor walks in and she drops her quill in surprise.

People fault Marina for being awkward, for being shy, but she doesn't quite understand how she's supposed to be otherwise. She was raised a half-blood and a half-caste in the most traditional wizarding community in Europe, and easy self-confidence is not for her.

Viktor is a friend of Charlie Weasley, an old friend of hers, no big deal. But Viktor is also the famous Quidditch Seeker whom she's known by reputation half her life and, more recently, the elusively distinguished Bulgarian spy. He has the most beautiful manners, courtly and kind, and he has been charming to her on the few occasions they've met, but he always makes her uneasy. She finds him a little too interesting; she likes him a little too much. His careful concentrated attentions stir the most unreasonable hopes in her, and even though she's a poor half-blood librarian, she wants to act as if she has the poise and worldly _savoir-faire_ that she had never a chance to gain, as if she had the education she did not, in fact, have.

"Good afternoon, Viktor," says Marina, with a convincing imitation of poise. "May I help you?"

"I—" Viktor looks around at the empty library. "I just came to say hi."

"Oh," says Marina, a little confused. Even her friends don't do this. But then her friends, unlike Viktor, all have day jobs.

A newspaper lies open on her desk, a slightly outdated copy of _Paris Match_, and he's reading it upside down. The left-hand page in a sensational exposé of the latest sex scandal in the Muggle French political world. It makes Marina blush to see him looking at it, and she slams the paper shut. If that story were unfolding in her own world, it would upset her terribly. Marina does not find adultery amusing. Her father was unfaithful and it broke her mother's heart—even though her parents were all but separated by then, even though Julijana Vasik too had been unfaithful, in thought and word if not in deed. Marina does not find adultery amusing, but when it happens in the Muggle world, it doesn't seem so real.

"It's Muggle, isn't it?" says Viktor, staring down at the front page.

"I'm just brushing up on my French," says Marina,a littledefensively. This is something less than the truth. Marina has just started freelancing for the Hungarian Ministry of Magic. Her task is to digest Muggle news from the French and Italian papers for Hungarian staffers eager to embrace the liberalization of wizard-Muggle relations that has, in some parts of eastern Europe, accompanied Voldemort's fall. This undertaking is illegal in so many ways that Marina can hardly keep track. It is illegal for her to read the Muggle newspapers, it is illegal for her to bring them into the Ministry, it is illegal for her to be employed by a foreign Ministry of Magic while she's working for the Romanian Ministry, and it is of course illegal for her to work for the Hungarian Ministry on the Romanian Ministry's time. But the Romanian Ministry hasn't paid her in over a year, and Marina is breaking fewer laws than most of her neighbors are at the moment. (In wizarding Romania, laws are made to be broken.) The job appealed to her curiosity about Hungary and France and Italy, even as it offered some slight respite from poverty, so she took it anyway.

Her brother and her brother's friends wonder sometimes why Marina stays on at the Ministry, when so many other Romanian staffers are deserting what now appears to be a sinking ship, but Marina has her reasons, only one of which is that she hopes eventually to get paid.

"Have you been to Paris?" says Viktor, as if reading her thoughts. "Or to Beauxbatons?"

Marina shakes her head ruefully. She has never been west of the Adriatic.

"Would you like to go somewhere?" blurts Viktor. "I mean—what I meant was—would you like to have dinner with me, somewhere fun? Paris is too far, I know, but I was thinking maybe Budapest."

She looks at him, as shock flows into gratitude. She smiles slowly and she nods, not much, because she knows it would be a mistake to show how excited she is. She thinks that it's been over a year since any man asked her out, any man at all, if one excludes the Albanian pimp who operates out of the Hotel Nai and the homeless Muggle who keeps coming onto her in Strada Lipscani.

"Where would you like to go?" asks Viktor. "The Vicious Veela or the Harried Horntail?"

"Er—where would you recommend?" asks Marina, who likes to travel but doesn't have the Galleons to eat out much, especially not in a wizarding quarter as hip as Budapest's.

"The Harried Horntail," says Viktor firmly. "Best cuisine in central Europe. Well, the best in a wizarding pub, anyway. The Vicious Veela has some interesting mixed drinks, but it's—well—well, I think you'd like the Harried Horntail better."

"Thanks," says Marina, cautiously but happily. "Thanks, I'd love to go."

"Are you leaving soon?" asks Viktor, once again glancing around the empty library.

Marina nods. She stands up and straightens her desk. Viktor helps her into her coat. Just before she flicks off the lights, Marina pulls her wand and transfigures the copy of _Paris Match_ into a carefully creased and highlighted copy of the Romanian Ministry of Magic staffers' handbook for the edification of the guards.

She always had a knack for transfiguration.


	2. Accident

**Chapter 2: Accident**

Bucharest's wizarding quarter is a sprawling testament to grandeur past. Marina lives half-way between Piata Centaura and the Ministry, in Strada Bufnita, a resolutely respectable small street that runs behind the Hotel Nai. When she gets home on Friday afternoon Cezar is in a tizzy. Usually he is a calm Kneazle, stocky, placid, deeply preoccupied with personal hygiene and hunting dust bunnies. But today he is on the rampage, storming into the hall, down the stairs, onto the stoop, from which he looks anxiously up and down the street. Marina picks him up and he digs his claws possessively into her flesh, peering over her shoulder at figures Marina does not see.

Marina carries Cezar upstairs and looks carefully around her two-room flat. There is a footprint, a large, man-sized footprint in the thin dusting of flour she always leaves on the floor just inside the door. The newspapers lying on the breakfast table have been disturbed. Without further ado, she grabs her purse in one hand, Cezar in the other, and scuttles back downstairs to her landlady's flat.

"Mrs. Bogasieru," she says breathlessly, when a comfortably plump elderly witch opens the door. "Mrs. Bogasieru, someone's been in my flat. Do you know who it was?"

"Your English friend was here with the young lady—what's her name?"

"Katie," supplies Marina.

"Yes, yes, Ekaterina. Yes. Here," says Mrs. Bogasieru, shuffling towards her overflowing desk. "They left you a wedding invitation."

Marina takes the unsealed envelope and pulls out the elegant, hot-pressed card. In ornate prose, the elder Bells request the honor of her presence at the marriage of their daughter Katherine Irene to Mr. Charles Weasley. The invitation is embossed with two small animated drawings of dragons, linking their spiked tails. Marina looks at it and she looks at Mrs. Bogasieru and she says, "But why were they in my flat?"

"Ah," says Mrs. Bogasieru. "Ah. The Dragon Keeper with the very strange accent—the good-looking one who's too old for you?"

"Fergal," suggests Marina.

"Yes," Mrs. Bogasieru. "He baked a pastry made of baking soda, which sounds very odd to me, but your English friends say it is a great delicacy. They brought you one and left it in your kitchen. They left the wedding invitation there too, but when they saw me and I asked to see it, the young lady fetched it downstairs for me. A very nice young lady, I think. It is nice to be married young."

This story is reasonably coherent. Marina has powerful anti-intruder charms on her flat door, but Slovadan knows the counter-charm and he would have told Charlie and Katie. She climbs the stairs, tailed by Mrs. Bogasieru, and they duly find Fergal's Irish soda bread, neatly wrapped, on her kitchen counter. But there is no note.

Marina hates it when people don't leave notes.

"You should get married too," says Mrs. Bogasieru affably, munching on a slice of soda bread. "Maybe you will meet a nice Romanian boy at your English friend's wedding. Your English friend, he has been a good friend to you, all these years you are living here, he must have nice friends, yes?"

Marina resists the temptation to tell Mrs. Bogasieru that her English friend Charlie, many valuable qualities notwithstanding, doesn't know any nice Romanian boys. Well, he knows one. He knows her brother.

At twenty-four, Marina is starting to wonder whether there are, in fact, any nice single young wizards left in Romania. The Romanian wizarding community is troubled, fragmented, and small. The poor purebloods—who are numerous—are all trying to marry up. The rich purebloods—who are few—are trying not to marry down. The Muggle-borns are a bunch of unlettered toughs who don't know one end of a wand from the other, which is not surprising, really, given that most purebloods won't give them the time of day, and there's no proper school for them to attend. (The Durmstrang Institute, which serves Romania, doesn't admit such riff-raff.) Half-bloods are rare indeed, because Romanian purebloods don't marry out. Marina feels like a freak in this community.

Marina isn't really a half-blood, of course, any more than her mother was. Julijana Oblak's ancestry was only one-eighth Muggle; Marina's is one-sixteenth. But one-sixteenth is enough to make one a half-blood, here in Romania.

Marina is Romanian enough to know that she won't be marrying a Romanian pureblood, fifteen pureblooded great-great-grandparents notwithstanding. She is too proud to pass herself off as a pureblood, as some witches would do in these circumstances. As Stefan would say, human transfiguration is a powerful tool, but a poor way to live one's life.

It isn't just her blood status. There were always whispers about her mother. It wasn't just that Julijana Oblak had one great-grandfather who was a minor Magyar nobleman instead of a Slovenian alchemist. Julijana was raised in a fairytale village in the gorges near Lake Bled, and she called herself Slovenian, but there was much confusion in her ancestry, too much, too much of an aura of having been buffeted from one end of the Austro-Hungarian empire to the other. It wasn't just the Magyar stain but also, nearer the surface, the Macedonian mother from whom she got her dark good looks and, farther back, a trace of Russian. It wasn't just her rootlessness, but also the mysterious Oblak custom, inherited from a long-forgotten Russian forebear, of educating children in St. Petersburg instead of at the familiar and prestigious Durmstrang Institute. Off in St. Petersburg, the Oblak children imbibed a cosmopolitan outlook quite foreign to their Balkan roots. Off in St. Petersburg, the Oblak daughters imbibed a strain of revolutionary feminism that thoroughly unfitted them to become Balkan—much less Romanian—wives.

Even when her mother was alive, there were whispers about her mother.

So Marina, caressing Cezar as she tosses Mrs. Bogasieru a politely evasive reply, has already all but given up on the notion of a nice Romanian boy. She thinks she could settle for a nice Bulgarian one. She thinks it's a bloody miracle, less than she once wanted perhaps, but far more than she expected from life.

But she tells herself, as she shuts the door behind the loquaciously affable Mrs. Bogasieru, that going on first dates thinking like this is the reason why first dates don't turn into second ones. With a flick of her wand she lights the torches in the W.C. and she says five times, firmly, to the mirror, "It probably won't work out. But I'm going to have a nice time anyway. I'm not going to expect much tonight. I'm just going to have a nice time anyway."

And she goes to meet him in Budapest, at the Harried Horntail.

Dining in Budapest is an adventure for Marina. She gazes around the room at the well-dressed patrons, the children prattling in four or five languages, the glitzy animated oil painting of a Hungarian Horntail on a wall opposite the entrance. She picks her way carefully through the lengthy menu, on which dishes are listed in three languages—Hungarian, German, and English—but not, of course, Romanian. Viktor offers to help, but Marina orders for herself in very, very careful Hungarian, and the waitwizard appears to understand.

"How many languages do you speak?" she asks as the waitwizard walks away.

Viktor thinks for a minute. He says, "Seven. Bulgarian, Romanian, Hungarian, German, English, a little Russian, a little French. Oh, and a little Greek, but that's just for vacation purposes."

Marina looks at him.

"We have a cottage in the Peloponnese," says Viktor.

Marina looks at him.

"Well," says Viktor, belatedly realizing that the Vasiks probably do_ not_ have a cottage in the Peloponnese, "well, it's my grandparents', really."

Marina purses her lips. She says, "Is Durmstrang a good place to learn languages?"

Viktor shrugs. "I learned to read at four," he says apologetically. "I couldn't go to Durmstrang until I was eleven, almost twelve. My parents taught me some magic, but they couldn't flout the law too wildly. So they hired a tutor and we mostly did languages . . . I don't really speak them all that well."

"The classes at Durmstrang are in German, aren't they?" she asks.

"Mostly, yes. The textbooks are in all different languages, German, Russian, English. There was even one in Romanian—an advanced transfiguration textbook by a fellow named Stefan Dobrega." He glances at her, hopefully, to see if she recognizes the name. "But we used Quick Transla-quills for those," he says after a minute. "I speak German a lot better than I read it."

Marina reads German after a fashion, but she doesn't speak it at all. She never went to Durmstrang, nor to any school. She sat at home like the modest, obedient Romanian girl she was, and she did lessons with her mother until her mother was overcome by darkness. Then she did lessons with Slovadan until Slovadan moved to the Transylvanian Dragon Research and Breeding Facility. From the age of thirteen, she taught herself. By the age of fifteen, she had read every book on magic ever published in Romanian. Then she started on the French books, because Romanian is an Italic language and French comes more easily to her than English or German.

She has heard of Quick Transla-quills, of course, but she has never owned one. They're not easy to come by, not if you're poor, not if you're a Vasik, not if you live in Romania.

He asks about her family, which is a standard wizarding dating gambit, especially here in the east, where traditions matter almost as much as bloodlines. He asks if Slovadan is her only sibling, and she says yes. He asks if she has cousins, and she says, a few. He says, is that lonely, and Marina shrugs and smiles.

In truth, Marina's mother was the fifth of six children, and Marina has kin aplenty on her mother's side. But they never did her much good. Lavra, who was a herbologist though not a very good one, clumsily exposed herself to the cry of a full-grown Mandrake and died at the unfortunate age of thirty-seven. Marko sits in a Croatian prison, convicted of passing information to the Romanian Death Eaters, though it remains unclear—even to his nearest relatives—whether he was guilty or framed. Pavel, who is gay (a state of being not much accepted in the Balkan wizarding community), lives a strange half-life in Paris, among companions who are mostly unaware he is a wizard. Andrej, the middle son, was overcome by darkness, like his sister Julijana. That leaves only Aunt Cecilija, fratchetty, needy, slightly unbalanced, tending the echoing empty house in the gorges near Lake Bled.

If she knew him better, if she were certain she could trust him, she would tell him this, but not, she thinks, on the first date. So she smiles and says nothing, and he asks about her parents.

Both of them are dead.

"Was it long ago?" says Viktor.

This is not something Marina particularly wants to discuss on a first date. She tries to think of a way to change the subject. She fails. "My father," she says, "my father died when I was eleven years old."

They're the same age, almost to the month, and she can see him doing the math in his head. Thirteen years ago, the world was ostensibly at peace, but it was an uneasy peace at best, especially in Carpathia.

"Was he killed by Death Eaters?" murmurs Viktor.

"No," says Marina, "no, it was an accident." And because she likes him, because she thinks she is starting to trust him, she feeds him the line she always feeds to those she likes and trusts. "He was abroad, working with Peruvian Vipertooths."

Anyone in the dragon community would know in an instant what she meant. Anyone. She was the one who told Charlie, and Charlie nearly fainted. She was present when Slovadan told the Director, and the Director nearly burst into tears. Old women hug her when she feeds them this line.

Viktor doesn't get it. He says, "I'm sorry." He pats her hand across the table, which is nice though it's insufficient, and he says, "I didn't know." He says, "Was he buried there or here?"

Marina looks at the floor. She thinks, buried? There wasn't much left to bury. Anyone in the dragon community would have known that the minute I said, "Peruvian—." But it's quite clear that Viktor knows nothing about Peruvian Vipertooths.

She looks at the man sitting across from her, hook-nosed, lantern-jawed, still young, and for the first time, she feels herself to be his equal, even, in some slight ways, his superior. Marina knows, as any witch raised in eastern Europe would know, the bare outlines of Viktor's story. She knows that his parents' marriage was the much heralded alliance of the last two great wizarding houses in Bulgaria; yet it was also a love match, one that was slathered all over the pages of the _Drum Liber_ and other sentimentally sensationalist periodicals in the year Slovadan was born. Viktor was the middle son and the only one who survived; by the time he was five, they knew there would be no more. It surprised no one that this wealthy pureblood Wunderkind grew up an athlete and a scholar, that he made Bulgarian National Seeker at seventeen, that he became Igor Karkaroff's star pupil in Karkaroff's last years as headmaster, that he was chosen as the Durmstrang Triwizard Champion by the Goblet of Fire. His manners aren't gregarious, but they're impeccable; his visage may not be conventionally handsome, but it's attractive enough to Marina. There isn't much that isn't attractive in Viktor.

But he doesn't know much about dragons. She needs someone strong, someone resilient, and it gives her pause, that he doesn't know much about dragons.


	3. Indian Summer in Transylvania

**Chapter 3: Indian Summer in Transylvania**

One Saturday, after her weekly jaunt into Muggle Bucharest to drink coffee and read the papers, Marina apparates out to Transylvania to see her brother and the dragons. The mountains are still lushly green and the air is warm for November. There was an American intern once who called this season "Indian summer."

Antonja, the elderly Squib-of-all-work, is dragging buckets of dragon dung across the courtyard. She squeals when she sees Marina, who's a favorite of hers, and rushes up to hug her. She stops two feet short of the young witch, and Marina pulls her wand and mutters, "Scourgify—Scourgify—Scourgify," until Antonja's face and hands and dress are as clean as a whistle. They embrace.

"Look at you," says Antonja. "Look at you. New shoes?"

"I repaired the heels," explains Marina. She is quite adept at such things. She is living mostly on savings now, supplemented by a little cash from the Hungarian Ministry of Magic. Fortunately she still has some gold left in Gringotts. After their mother's death, Slovadan and Marina sold off their family's small plot of land. They sold off the goblin-wrought silverware that their rich Slovenian mother had brought to her poor Romanian marriage, and most of the china too. Slovadan bucked at the china, made a motion to save some of it for Marina's hope chest, but Marina said, sell it all. She didn't want the memories.

"Look at you," says Antonja again. "Such rosy cheeks, such a smile today. Later you have a date?"

Marina shrugs and smiles as Fergal crosses the courtyard. "Hey, Marina," he calls. "You heard the good news? Both of us can go."

Last summer, Slovadan and Fergal thought they would have to toss a Galleon for the privilege of attending Charlie and Katie's English wedding. The dragon reservation cannot be entirely denuded of its senior staff; there is simply no question of all three Assistant Dragon Keepers taking time off at once. But then the Director, who is as nearly a saint as a rotund, aging Dutchman with a dragon fixation can be, offered to take their places, to stay and tend the hearth himself, with the help of some hand-picked second-year interns, while Slovadan and Fergal went to England. So both of them are going, and everyone's delighted, including Marina, who would have missed Fergal almost as much as she would have missed her brother.

Not that she would say so to Slovadan.

Slovadan gets on with Fergal well himself, but he has always tried to prevent Marina from having too much to do with him. He thinks Fergal is too old for her, too jaded, too experienced. He thinks she doesn't know that Fergal goes slumming among the Muggle girls. Marina lets him think this. After all, he is her big brother. But though she too thinks Fergal is too old for her, though she doesn't trust him far, they have certain things in common. Fergal, like Marina, sprang from a beautiful land with a tragic past. But unlike Slovadan, who faces life with an iron will and a steely reserve, Fergal is witty and emotional, a talker, a singer, a baker and giver of Irish breads and sweets, and sometimes it's a relief to be around him.

Marina knows, of course, that Charlie is the one Slovadan would have liked her to fall for, but much as she likes Charlie, she was little tempted. Much as she likes Charlie, she always thought of him as the sheltered Englishman, a not quite grown-up lad. She knows she's being unfair. Charlie lost uncles in the first war and a brother in the second; he served out an apprenticeship that few wizards finish, and he has quite a knack with Horntails. But still, she thinks, but still, he came from a happy home. He had a proper education in a world at least somewhat secure.

He has seen only the nice side of dragons.

She waves to Fergal and goes into the mess hall, where Slovadan is seated at one of the long tables, wading through a pile of internship applications, and Charlie is writing yet another frantic letter to Hermione with an owl perched on one shoulder and Katie leaning over the other. Katie waves to Marina in greeting, and Charlie throws her a quick smile before returning to his letter.

Charlie has been sending a lot of owls to Hermione this autumn, and the burden of them all is the same. Do _not_ tell Luna Lovegood I am getting married. Do not let Ginny tell Luna Lovegood I am getting married. Do not invite Luna to the wedding. Do not invite Luna to cover the wedding for the _Quibbler_. Bury Dad's Muggle camcorder in the backyard _now_, before the ground freezes. Do not let Colin Creevey within a mile of the Burrow, with or without a camera.

Katie finds this all very amusing.

"The _Quibbler_ coverage of Bill's wedding was scandalous," protests Charlie. "Those allegations about Kingsley could have ruined his career—the Ministry's a very uptight place—"

"I thought it was a scream," says Katie. "Best wedding article I ever read. Best photos, too—"

"You weren't even there," says Charlie. "Or were you? Was that yet another of the occasions on which I didn't meet you?"

"No," says Katie. "Well, yes, actually, I was invited. But I came down with doxy flu and couldn't go. My mother bought me a copy of the _Quibbler_ to read while I was stuck in bed—it was hilarious—"

"Remus is a very private person," says Charlie. "I don't think I can ever forgive Luna for saying—"

Katie laughs.

"Remember Petru Cioran?" asks Slovadan, looking up from his pile of papers.

"Petru Cioran is applying for an internship?" asks Marina incredulously. Her surprise is not so much that Petru is old enough to be considered—though it is a wonder how those who were nine become, in the blink of an eye, seventeen—as that a boy like Petru, a boy with options, would want such a career. Petru's father Tomas is the consulting Healer at the dragon reservation, and Petru is now in his final year at Beauxbatons. (His blood, like Marina's, is not quite pure enough for Durmstrang.) Once upon a time, Tomas and Nina Cioran gave Marina a home for two years, the semblance of a family. Once upon a time.

Slovadan hands her a sheaf of neatly handwritten papers. Marina takes them absently and stares into the middle distance. She sees the familiar boyish handwriting and she sees, with the pulsing pain of nostalgia, the child on a toy broomstick, skimming bare feet over the wheat fields that line the road to Sighisoara. She sees the Ciorans' ramshackle wooden house, overflowing with books and children, of whom little Petru was the eldest. She sees the hot bright kitchen and the cold dark chambers, the jollity when Tomas was there and the anxiety when he was away. She sees herself at sixteen, bashful and withdrawn, reading and writing by the light of her wand through sleepless nights in the unlit, unheated garret, slipping out at dawn along the garden path that led to Stefan's secluded, cluttered laboratory, from whose windows leapt, at irregular intervals, small herbivorous wildlife.

"It's a horrible thing to say about a man," asserts Charlie, rousing Marina from her reverie.

"I was a fourth-year when he was teaching at Hogwarts," says Katie. "There was speculation even then, once we found out he was a werewolf. You should have heard what Angelina—"

"Stefan thought he was brilliant," says Marina quietly, handing the file back to her brother. "A kid, you know, but brilliant." She thinks, but she does not say, Slovadan, don't put this boy's life at risk, don't throw this boy's career away, by letting him marry himself at seventeen to the ungrateful service of large, violent, and irascible dragons.

"Even Bill was appalled by the part-human comments," says Charlie, "and I've never seen Bill lose his cool."

"All that sex stuff that got into those articles, that was just Colin being a sixteen-year-old boy," says Katie. "Luna's a fruitcake, but there's no harm in her. I'm glad she wrote those articles. Some people are sick for months with flu, but I was out of bed in no time, with such a good distraction."

Charlie still looks skeptical. "Have you got any sealing wax?" he murmurs.

Katie shakes her head and says, "It's on the kitchen counter. Just summon it." Marina glances at a stubby pencil on the dining table. With a snap and a tiny puff of smoke, it turns into a stick of the Dragon Facility's trademark blood-red sealing wax.

"Thanks!" exclaims Charlie, setting the wick alight with the tip of his wand, as Slovadan mutters, "Oh, stop showing off."

"May I borrow one of the Cleansweeps?" asks Marina. "It's so warm today, I thought I'd do a quick loop around the reservation."

"Sure, help yourself," says Charlie."Wilhelmina left a spare Nimbus 2000 last time she was here. Take that."

"I'll come too," says Katie quickly. "I'll go and get my broom."

Marina realizes that someone—Charlie or Slovadan—has told Katie that she's not supposed to be flying alone, which is grossly unfair, because Marina flies well, almost as well as Slovadan does. And she is not a child. She is twenty-four, two years older than Katie, who is getting married next month. But she knows why Slovadan worries, so she does not protest, when Katie runs off to get her broom.

They fly merrily through the Romanian Longhorn range, with the warm autumn wind on their tails, looping twice around the mountain peaks—a girls' afternoon out. Katie wants to visit Minnie on the way back to the compound, but Marina demurs. At last she agrees to a fly-by. "You can't really tame a dragon," she explains to Katie, who, dragon enthusiast though she is, does not have eight generations of family tradition behind her.

"I know it's unusual," says Katie. "I didn't believe it when Charlie first told me. But Minnie's so sweet!" She speaks as if Minnie were a large, rowdy puppy.

"She's beautiful," allows Marina. "But Katie, you can't tame a dragon."

When they get back to the compound, Slovadan and Charlie are playing chess in the mess hall as the chef and a cross-looking intern set out the supper dishes with a series of thuds and bangs. Slovadan, as usual, is conducting extended, leisurely, strategic conversations with the knights and the rooks. "If I castle," he warns them, "I'll probably lose the queen." The white queen wrinkles her face at Slovadan in a hideous moue.

"But he'll win the game anyway," mutters Charlie to Slovadan's queen. "It's just not your lucky day."

"Give the queen a swig of Felix Felicis," calls Fergal from the corner where he sits reading a cookbook, "and tell Slovadan to think up a new strategy. He always, always, always castles, sacrifices the queen, and wins the game."

Marina blanches. Fergal and Charlie both looked thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Slovadan shuffles his feet and looks away. "He was just joking, Marina," says Charlie quietly. "He—we forgot."

For a moment, all is silence. Then Slovadan sweeps the chessmen off the board and starts packing them up, a little more forcefully than necessary. Charlie watches without protest.

"I'm sorry, Marina," says Fergal, coming up and laying a hand on her shoulder. Slovadan glowers at them. "I'm sorry. My bad. Stay for dinner?"

"Thanks," says Marina. "Thanks, but I need to apparate now. I'm meeting a friend for a dinner in Budapest." There, she's done it, she's made a public announcement.

"A friend?" says Slovadan, her protective big brother. "Which friend?"

"Budapest?" says Charlie, the merry Englishman. "Which pub?"

"You are _not _going to the Vicious Veela," says Slovadan. "It is the most disgusting, tawdry—"

"We're going to the Harried Horntail," says Marina quickly.

"Order the venison," says Fergal, the aging gourmand.

"Just so you know," says Charlie. "The portrait to the left of the door as you walk in is inaccurate in certain crucial respects. You've probably noticed, a Horntail's horn is actually—"

Katie laughs and cuffs him affectionately. She's completely sold on Ukrainian Ironbellies, now that she's met Minnie. Fergal is delighted; Charlie is not.

"Good," says Slovadan. "The Harried Horntail is a very nice, family-oriented restaurant, with very good security. All the same, I'm not sure if it's suitable for two young women alone, and I don't like the idea of your going all the way to Budapest to meet a man that you don't know well—"

Marina knows her big brother well enough to know this is a question. She doesn't satisfy her big brother's curiosity. She smiles mysteriously, takes three steps, and apparates to Budapest.


	4. Suicide

**Chapter 4: Suicide**

It is St. Nicholas Day, and Marina and Viktor are dining at—surprise!—the Harried Horntail. He has offered to take her to other restaurants, but Zagreb is depressing, Belgrade is dangerous, and Sofia is full of teenage witches who want Viktor Krum's autograph. They went to Ljubljana once, but it wasn't as much fun as the Harried Horntail. They have a regular table now, on Friday nights, at the Harried Horntail. Antonja knows who the fellow is now, and Katie knows, but the boys are still in the dark.

Viktor is in the dark in his own way. He has just announced that he wants to take her to see the swans on Lake Bled.

What a brick to drop in a conversation. But then, he wouldn't know.

Marina has been to Lake Bled, as it happens, and she has seen the swans. She has seen the place where a family with too little backbone and too much gold raised a daughter linguistically able but psychologically frail. She has bathed in the shimmering waters and felt them peck at her heels.

Swans are pretty, but they aren't very nice.

They don't do much for Marina.

They don't solve anything, swans.

To Viktor, she simply says no, and he takes it like a man. He doesn't try to talk her round. He doesn't say she'll like it when she goes. He lets it drop, and she is grateful, so grateful. Romanian wizards are not good at listening to the word no.

Which is not to imply that Viktor is not persistent. Because five minutes later, he is saying, "Marina, was it hard when your mother died?"

"It was a terrible shock," says Marina. "More shock than grief. I thought that if anything was going to happen, it would have happened sooner. I—" She realizes suddenly that Viktor is following this line of conversation much too well. She reads the truth in his grave dark eyes. "You know, don't you?" she says quietly. She wonders if Slovadan told him, or Charlie.

He inclines his head. He reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out a folded sheet of paper. He hands it to her without a word.

She unfurls it. It is the front page of the _Drum Liber_, dated July, five and a half years ago. The right-hand column lists all the Romanian boys and girls who took their NEWTs that spring, together with the grades they achieved. Romania is a small-townish place, and this was common practice in Marina's adolescence. She looks down at the short and not very distinguished list of NEWTs, and a lump rises in her throat.

She merely glances at the headline, which she knows of yore and will never forget.

_HALF-BLOOD WITCH OUTDOES DURMSTRANG BOYS IN NEWTS SWEEP_

_Marina Vasik, 18, a half-blood witch from Transylvania, surprised a nation this month by besting several pureblood Romanian boys in the annual NEWT exams. Miss Vasik, who was educated privately following her mother's suicide two years ago, achieved higher NEWT grades in a broader range of subjects than any of the Romanian final-year students at the renowned Durmstrang Institute. This news comes on the heels of allegations that the Durmstrang Institute discriminates against Romanian witches and wizards and is certain to fuel the controversy._

_"We do endeavor to educate Romanian wizards and witches to our usual excellent standard," remarked Bogdan Harusy, acting headmaster of the Durmstrang Institute in the wake of former headmaster Igor Karkaroff's mysterious flight this spring. "But we're not often successful. The fact is, most Romanian wizards are doltish and dumb. Moreover, this was an unusual year. All of our best final-year students spent the year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, observing and participating in the Triwizard Tournament, and this of course accounts for our failure to achieve the desired level of NEWT results this spring. I anticipate a stunning rebound next June."_

_Harusy's comments may or may not console Romanian parents who believe their children's magical talents have been slighted at Durmstrang. They certainly fail to address the deeper structural problem of witches' outdoing wizards, which has caused dissension even within the Ministry._

_"It's quite mysterious," said Minister of Education, Blood Status, and Family Values Glad Ursu. "This is the third time in a decade that a witch has appeared at the top of the Romanian NEWTs list. It's very embarrassing for the boys, and it makes me wonder if the NEWT examiners have compromised their standards to make things easy for the girls."_

_"I resent these allegations that girls are not as smart as boys," retorted Ministry spokeswitch Lizuca Blaga of the Department of Interior Affairs and Shameless Patriotic Promotion. "Look at me. I'm very smart and very successful. No, what troubles me is that Miss Vasik isn't genuinely Romanian at all. Oh, her father's family is authentic, everyone knows who the Vasiks are, but her mother's family is a curious and unsavory mélange of Slovenian and several other ethnicities. Even Magyar, I'm told, and we all know how disgustingly the Magyars behaved to the Transylvanians during the Hungarian occupation. Miss Vasik is obviously a bright young witch, but it makes no sense to cast her as a Romanian heroine."_

_Miss Vasik's tragic family background adds another perplexing dimension to this intriguing triumph. Her father, Sandu Vasik, an eccentric scion of the Transylvanian dragon-keeping clan, met his death in the jaws of a Peruvian Vipertooth on La Sola Vipertooth Reservation in the Andes seven years ago. Miss Vasik's mother, Julijana, killed herself by overdosing on Felix Felicis five years later. Some former neighbors speculated that Julijana Vasik was distraught over her husband's gory end, while other alleged that she was overcome by shame at the failure of her ill-advised marriage into a well-known, though declining, pureblood family. "She just couldn't handle the Transylvanian lifestyle," explained former neighbor Afina Sareci. "Half-bloods are different from us, less healthy, less intelligent, less stable. And Slovenians! Don't get me started."_

_Following her mother's suicide, Miss Vasik was educated without fee by private tutors, including the renowned transfiguration researcher Stefan Dobrega. Several Transylvanian educators and Ministry officials have speculated that this unusual form of coaching may have given Miss Vasik an unfair advantage in her NEWTs._

_"But it won't pay off in the long run," warned Valeriu Antal, the sole Romanian professor at the Durmstrang Institute. "Private coaching is fine for passing exams, but it doesn't instill intellectual flexibility and character the way a proper school education does. I dare say that Miss Vasik will find it takes more to succeed in life than it does to pass a few exams."_

_What's next for this clever and controversial young witch? Miss Vasik will embark on a dragon keeping internship at the Transylvanian Dragon Research and Breeding Facility in September, and several prominent observers have already expressed doubts about whether she will be able to stay the course of study. Only time will tell._

Marina looks up from the article. It's been five years and five months since it was published, and it ought to be water under the bridge, but it all comes back too quickly, in bold and garish hues.

"I hope you don't mind that I looked you up," says Viktor.

Marina takes a deep breath. She swallows hard and brushes the incipient tears out of the corners of her eyes. She shakes her head. She folds the _Drum Liber_ article and hands it back to Viktor. She says, "No, no, it's easier this way."

Not much in life has been easy for Marina.

The fact of her mother's suicide did not matter so much, once it was over. As she told Viktor, there was more shock than grief. The carefree, girlish mother she remembers faintly from childhood was already dying when her father died. Those last five years were nightmarishly lonely ones, tending a woman prone to erratic bouts of passion and indifference, of silence and goopy sentiment and angry, pouting withdrawal.

The truth is, life was easier, after her mother died. She had more peace, more freedom, more energy, more hope, even, ironically, a bit more money. Life was easier in every way, except for the questions.

Julijana left no note.

Sometimes, when Marina thinks of her mother, she wonders, why did she love Slovadan so much more than she loved me? Why did she wait until Slovadan was twenty-one, out of the house, educated, gainfully employed, and not do the same for me? What kind of a woman kills herself when her sixteen-year-old daughter is eight miles away, visiting her big brother for a weekend at his dragon reservation, and is going to come home and find her dead on the floor on a breezy, sunlit May morning? She thinks, if she had waited four more months, I would have been of age, and Slovadan would not have had to fight that maddeningly ridiculous court battle to get himself declared my guardian. If it had been autumn, and not a warm and lovely Carpathian spring.

And then she thinks, why did she wait so long? If she was going to do it, why not in the beginning, when it would have made sense? Suicide in the first flush of grief over her husband's gruesome death—that, yes, that I can understand. After all, he was my father. Suicide in the first flush of anger when she learned of her husband's betrayal—that, yes, that I can understand. After all, I too was betrayed. But what kind of a woman waits five years? What kind of a woman tortures her children with five years of anger and neglect and illness and withdrawal, and then, finally, finally, finally when they think she's getting better, kills herself?

Sometimes, of a warm sunny Sunday morning, Marina flies out to look at the Longhorns, and she gazes down at the corner of the reservation that was once her father's land, she gazes down at the ruined cottage in which she was raised, and she thinks, what kind of a person kills herself in the spring? Suicide in November, when there's two hours of darkness to every hour of light—that I can understand. Suicide in December, in rain and snow and wind, with the crivetz blowing hard across the steppe. Suicide in January, in the fitful anxious depression that accompanies each hopeless new year. That, yes, that I understand. But what kind of a woman, she thinks, gazing around at the lush green slopes, what kind of a woman kills herself in a warm and wildly lovely Carpathian spring?

The memories have taken away her appetite, as they always do. Marina picks at her food until Viktor says, "Let me take you home." But Marina says no, no, I don't want to go, so they sit there for two more hours, drinking coffee and poking two forks idly at one piece of cake and chatting of indifferent things. Viktor says he doesn't want to play Quidditch anymore, he's tired of games, he needs a real job. He's said this before and Marina tells him, as she did the week before last, that real life is overrated. Viktor smiles gently and half-heartedly, because he's proud of her stoicism, and he shoves the last bite of cake towards her with his fork. Marina smiles half-heartedly and gently, because she's grateful for his patient kindness, and she cuts the thumbnail-sized piece of cake in two with her fork and shoves one piece back to him. At last, Viktor says, "Let me take you home, I don't want you apparating alone tonight," and Marina says, very well, yes, and they go.

He follows her up the stairs of Mrs. Bogasieru's house to her modest flat. She doesn't really want to say good night, but she hasn't quite got the nerve to invite him in. So she says, "Good night, Viktor, thank you." He touches her face and he kisses her, not gently, as he has a couple times before, but for real. It ought to make things better, but it only makes things worse. It isn't her first kiss, but it feels like it is. She's never felt so awkward in her life. She tries to relax; she tries to remind herself that this is Viktor, whom she likes rather a lot. But she has never felt so awkward in her life.

She hasn't had the sort of social life that she assumes a rich brilliant Bulgarian Seeker would have had. She never had the social life that kids like Viktor had at school.

She doesn't quite know what he wants.

She doesn't quite know what she wants either.

So she says, "Good night, Viktor," and she shuts the door.


	5. Yuletide at the Burrow

**Chapter 5: Yuletide at the Burrow**

The wedding is slated for the evening of Boxing Day. Slovadan and Marina apparate to England on the morning of Christmas Eve and place themselves at the disposal of Mrs. Weasley, who is supervising the cooking and the decorations.

They are billeted at the Lovegoods' home. In spite of Charlie's owls, it is immediately apparent that Ginny, Ron, and Hermione have long since told the Lovegoods about the impending wedding. The straggly blond, owlish-looking daughter of the house is vociferously philosophical about Charlie's request that she not feature his wedding in her father's magazine.

"I couldn't have covered it anyway," she explains. "Not on Boxing Day. Crumple-Horned Snorkacks come out of hibernation for twelve short days at Christmas, and I'll be frantically busy in Scandinavia all this week. I would have apparated there yesterday, except that Dad wanted to go to the Weasleys' for Christmas dinner." She lowers her voice. "He's softening his investigative reporting a bit, you see, in middle age."

Marina spends Christmas Day baking Cauldron Cakes, and Slovadan spends it helping Mr. Weasley and Bill put an Engorgement Charm on the Burrow's living room so that it can hold a hundred or so. They dine sumptuously in a crowd of red-haired wizards of all ages, shapes, and sizes. The handful of blondish and brown-haired Bells stick out like Billywigs in a patch of wood lice.

That night, when Slovadan and Marina return to the Lovegoods' home, there is a note waiting from Viktor. Slovadan watches Marina as she reads it. All it says is that he's in England, staying in Diagon Alley for the nonce, and he'll see her tomorrow. But Slovadan would hardly believe that. He watches as she opens the small package lying beside the note. It contains a Quick Transla-Quill in a lovely peacock feather pattern.

"Marina," says Slovadan, "what's going on between you two?"

His voice arrests her. She knew this conversation was coming, and she thinks she should have told him a month ago, but in Marina's life, first dates have seldom led to second ones, and Slovadan doesn't like to see her hurt.

She takes a deep breath and she says, "We've been seeing each other."

"He knows you're not a pureblood?" inquires Slovadan waspishly.

Marina doubts Slovadan could have said anything nastier if he'd tried. "Yes," she says shortly, "he knows. He knows about Mum too."

Slovadan blanches. Their mother's suicide is possibly Slovadan's least favorite topic of conversation in the entire world. "You told him about Mum?"

"I didn't tell him," says Marina. "He found out for himself. He knows most of what happened, and he still—" She breaks off. She didn't really expect him to Floo her again after the evening when they discussed her mother. Most men don't. Most men don't want to know. They think they do, but they don't. They want her to say it was an illness, they want her to say it was an accident. They want her to say that the _Drum Liber_ made the whole thing up. They do not want to hear that she was an isolated, unhappy, neglected, intermittently abused child who was if anything faintly relieved—horrified, frightened, embarrassed but nonetheless faintly relieved—by her mother's death.

Not even Slovadan wants to hear that.

"I just don't want to see you hurt," says Slovadan.

"He's a good sort," says Marina. "He's a better sort of man than they make in Romania. I'm sorry, Slovadan, but it's true."

Slovadan says lamely, limply, "I just don't want to see you hurt."

She thinks, too late for that.

On Boxing Day, Marina dons the spiffy new red and black velveteen dress robes that Nina Cioran picked out of a German witches' fashion catalog and ordered her as an early Christmas present. The stiff new dress robes hang elegantly from her shoulders but weigh heavily on her mind. She could never have afforded them herself and she's pretty sure the Ciorans can't either, not with four children at Beauxbatons and another starting soon. So difficult to know where friendship ends and charity begins; so difficult to take when one would rather give; so difficult to be claimed as fictive kin when it's so easy, so familiar anyway, to be alone.

The wedding is long and festive and beautiful, and the British wizards are kind, but Marina spends most of the evening with the Eastern European contingent, with Slovadan and Fergal and a few other young men who trained with Charlie and Slovadan in Romania when Marina was barely into her teens. She dances once with Fergal and once with Charlie's rather strange brother George, who gives her a Patented Daydream Charm and a voucher for a Headless Hat and keeps making jokes she doesn't understand. She tries to get him to translate them into French, which she speaks better than English, but he says he doesn't speak any French. Then Charlie's brother Bill tries to translate, but his accent is so bad that Marina can make nothing of it.

Hermione, it soon emerges, did _not_ bury Mr. Weasley's Muggle camcorder in the backyard, and it is much in evidence during the ceremony and the reception. Things keep going wrong with it, because it's designed to run on batteries, which don't work very well in the magic-laden environment of the Burrow. Mr. Weasley keeps interrupting the wedding ceremony and the wedding dinner to plead that Charlie and Katie repeat that vow, hold that kiss, not swallow that piece of cake yet because he wants to get it on tape. This is, after all, the last wedding of this generation, and his eldest grandson is not yet three.

Viktor, who is good with Muggle gimcracks, ultimately takes charge of the camcorder, to the relief of Mrs. Weasley and most of her children. For the rest of the evening, Charlie raises his hands to his face every time Viktor comes near him, and Katie laughs, and Viktor films Katie quickly and then leaves them alone. He strolls nonchalantly around the Burrow with the camcorder on his shoulder. The final wedding video will contain very extensive footage of Fergal, Slovadan, and Marina.

It is hours past sunset, past dinner and dessert, when Viktor puts the thing down and asks Marina to dance. It's growing late, and most of the dancers still on the floor are married couples, absorbed in long-practiced rhythms. From the edges of the dance floor, bleary-eyed wedding guests watch the dancers. The lights are dim, and Viktor swings Marina gently in a dark corner near the back door. Their bodies are not quite touching, but no matter; she fancies that she feels his nervousness and his longing, and it unnerves her. She feels like a magnet is drawing her to him, and she struggles not to be drawn. Even in costly new winter-weight dress robes, she feels naked and exposed, as if not only Viktor but a hundred wedding guests can see her nervousness and her longing.

Another song begins, and he holds her close, but she pulls away. "I—I think—I don't want to dance this one, Viktor," she mutters. She lets go his hand and flees.

He follows her, as she was hoping and dreading, and she has a chance to explain, but she doesn't know what to say.

They walk outside, in the reflected light of the stars on the snow, and he says, "Marina, are you okay?"

She glances over his shoulder, hoping Slovadan hasn't followed them.

"Marina," says Viktor, "did I do anything to offend you?"

"No," says Marina, "no, not at all."

"I'm sorry I don't dance well."

"You dance better than I do," says Marina candidly.

"Marina, what's wrong?"

"I—" she gropes for words. "I just don't like dancing in front of so many people. I feel—exposed."

"Because people will think we're together?" says Viktor quietly.

It's so tempting to say yes, to say yes, Viktor, that's it, that's all, people might think we're together, and we've only gone out eight or nine times. But he sounds so sad.

"Dancing—muddles me," mutters Marina, looking away. "I—I get caught up—I don't think about my feet—"

Viktor looks at her with an expression of the utmost astonishment. "Dancing with _me_ muddles _you_?" He seizes her by the waist and holds her two inches from him, as if they were dancing. "Does this muddle you?" he asks hopefully.

Marina smiles uncertainly.

"I wasn't even sure if you liked me," says Viktor.

"I—well, I guess I'm a little reserved," says Marina.

Viktor looks back towards the house. "There's a girl here tonight that I liked—well, that I was in love with, for—a few years." He says it casually, as if that isn't very long. He clears his throat. "She liked me very much, I think, in a fairly platonic manner, and she never quite had the nerve to tell me so. She just—she was flattered, I guess. There was someone else all the time. I thought that you—"

Marina opens her mouth in surprise. This line of thinking never occurred to her. What has occurred her, frequently and forcefully, is that Viktor has surely dated a great deal more than she has. It's not just that he's famous; it's not just that he went to school. At his age, wealthy and pureblooded, he's probably being fixed up with a succession of suitable young witches. With his connections, he's probably got half of wizarding Bulgaria combing through genealogies to find him a spouse. It never occurred to her that Viktor would not realize how desirable he is, how much power he has over her. "Who was it?" she asks faintly.

"It—well, Hermione."

She thought as much. And she's utterly delighted and relieved, because Hermione is not a glamorous Bulgarian pureblood, but a wildly unsuitable Muggle-born foreigner, who is married and madly in love and, moreover, seven months pregnant. Indeed, Hermione is everything Marina could hope for in an ex-girlfriend for Viktor.

"I don't think you're very well-suited to an English girl," says Marina with quiet decision. "I think you need a Ro—an eastern European one."

Viktor laughs out loud. He seldom smiles, but now he is grinning from ear to ear. He has never looked so young. He locks his hands behind her waist, and he brushes his nose against her cheek, butting and snuggling her like an eager puppy, and she thinks, maybe this will turn out well after all.


	6. Murder

**Chapter 6: Murder**

December in Bucharest is bitter cold, and January is worse, with the icy strong crivetz blowing hard across the steppe. Marina walks home from the Ministry on feet she can barely feel. She lets herself into her flat, stumbles into the kitchen, and boils a great cauldron of water. She strips off her stockings and suspends her feet above the cauldron, bathing them in steam. She lowers her toes into the cauldron, a centimeter, two centimeters, massaging her icy veins, as Cezar, blessed with a fur coat like a Russian bear's, sniffs around the rim.

The doorbell rings, which is most unusual on a Monday night. She stumbles to answer it, barefoot, rejoicing in the renewed feelings in her toes. Viktor stands there shivering, in an aviator's cap, arms crossed with his hands in his armpits, a soft-sided briefcase swinging beside him.

"I tried to Floo you," he says, "but the Network wasn't working. May I come in?"

She lets him in. They kneel on the wooden floor, facing each other, and she wonders why he's here. He looks so strangely at home, sitting on her living room floor, dipping his hands in the battered cauldron from the old Vasik homestead. Marina likes her privacy. She doesn't have friends here often, especially men. Slovadan has been here of course, Charlie a few times, Fergal once, but mostly she goes to the reservation. At home, she likes her privacy.

Just when she's starting to think that it's cozy to have a guest, just when she's starting to enjoy the fact that he came, he opens his briefcase and tosses a brown paper file on the sofa between them. It is stamped, "Secret and Confidential," and again, "Top Secret," and again, "Bulgarian Ministry of Magic."

"The Ministry's reopening the Dobrega case," says Viktor, not smiling. "I'm not allowed to show you what's in the file, so I'll just tell you what I know and we'll call it an interrogation."

Marina inclines her head. The mood is ruined.

"Stefan Dobrega was your tutor," says Viktor in a crisp impersonal voice.

She nods.

"He was murdered."

She nods again.

"You did not tell me this," says Viktor tartly.

Well, no.

"I would have liked to know."

She is very sorry. But Viktor—reality check. "There isn't a witch in Romania who didn't lose someone in the war."

"I know that," says Viktor. "But in this case, it was you."

She nods morosely.

"I read the transcripts of the original interrogations," says Viktor, more gently. "It sounds like you were close."

Marina says miserably, "We were." They were. A teenage orphan misfit, hungry after an isolated rural adolescence for any taste of life, and an eccentric tweedy old scholar who embraced her as the granddaughter he never had. "That's why I fell off my broom."

Viktor looks a question.

Marina sighs and braces herself for the telling. "I started an internship at the dragon reservation when I was eighteen. I left when I fell off my broom. They told you, didn't they, Slovadan and Charlie?"

Viktor smiles wryly. "They told you weren't supposed to fly alone."

"I can fly," says Marina indignantly. "I mean—not like you—but I can fly. I come from a dragon-keeping family," she points out. "_Everyone_ flies."

"And you fell off your broom?"

"It was just the second week of the internship. Slovadan and Charlie took the entire class of first-year interns out to the Hungarian Horntail sector for an aerial overview. We were flying low to the ground, and one of the second-years zoomed up behind us suddenly and started shouting that Stefan Dobrega's corpse had just been pulled from the Danube. He didn't know that any of us knew him. He just thought—famous wizard—Transylvania's native son—." She shrugs. "And I got light-headed and fell off my broom, right onto the back of a Hungarian Horntail. I slid to the ground and it started pawing me and sniffing and—well, Charlie did a fantastic dive and snatched me up like a Snitch and flew me back to the compound. I wasn't much hurt, but no one would believe that, they all thought I must be traumatized and terrified and fragile, and so—well, I quit."

"I'm sorry," says Viktor. "That's not the way Slovadan tells the story."

"He doesn't understand," says Marina quietly. "He didn't know Stefan the way I did. Slovadan was the main reason why I quit," she adds after a minute. "I could see he would never get another full night's sleep in his life if I kept working with dragons."

She thinks of her father, the way Slovadan did when she fell off her broom, and she wonders if Viktor understands. It was Slovadan who was traumatized, not her. She watches Viktor, and she sees him remember, and she is content.

"Slovadan doesn't like to see me take risks," she says. "He never seems to realize that I might mind the risks he takes."

Viktor is silent for a minute. He puts his hand on hers. "I will let you take risks," he says, as intently and as earnestly as if it were a proposal. "I would like to see you fly."

She nods. They look into each other's eyes and they almost kiss but the brown paper file hovers between.

And it's not going to go away.

Viktor sighs and picks it up and says, "There was a joint investigation five and a half years ago, the Romanian and Bulgarian Ministries together, because the body was found in the Danube, between two jurisdictions. They ruled he was killed in a duel, probably with a Death Eater. The report makes him sound very naïve."

"It wasn't a duel," says Marina.

"No," says Viktor, "I didn't think so. For one thing, I would assume that Stefan Dobrega was way too smart to get mixed up in a duel with a Death Eater."

"He was brilliant," says Marina. "He was the most brilliant man I ever met. He was 102 years old and he knew enough to pick his battles. And anyway, he didn't believe in dueling. He was developing a whole new system of practical defense by transfiguration. Even if he had gotten waylaid by a Death Eater in an isolated locale, he would just have turned him into a rabbit or a guinea pig."

Viktor raises an eyebrow.

"Stefan had a whole theory," explains Marina. "Not many people knew about it—actually, I don't think anyone knew the details other than the housekeeper and me. But, basically, Stefan always told me that if I was in a tight corner, I should transfigure my attacker into a small, herbivorous animal. Transfiguring the attacker into an animal would muddle his ability to think as a human being, slow down his intellectual reflexes, and limit his foresight. Herbivorous was essential because herbivorous animals generally lack the attack instinct—I mean, one obviously wouldn't transfigure an attacker in a lion or tiger—"

Viktor nods.

"And choosing a small animal would make the attacker less dangerous. Oh, and of course, no opposable thumbs, no wand."

"Some wizards can do magic without wands," points out Viktor.

Marina scoffs. "There isn't a witch or wizard in eastern Europe who could have taken on Stefan without a wand. Unless you're suggesting that he encountered Voldemort personally?"

"No, Voldemort was in England on the date in question," says Viktor. "I already checked that. Assuming Professor Dobrega had his wand with him—"

"He wouldn't have needed it," insists Marina.

"Transfiguration is hard—"

"Stefan developed techniques for wandless transfiguration. It was part of the defense system."

Viktor looks skeptical. Marina smiles wryly. "Look at Cezar's scratching post, okay?" she says, pointing at the carpeted post that Charlie built to Muggle specifications, copying a pet store flyer that Wilhelmina brought from England on one of her visits. She bites her lip, tosses her head slightly, and the scratching post turns into a bonsai. Viktor stares.

"I've never seen anything like that!" he exclaims. "You learned that from Stefan Dobrega?"

Marina nods. "And I'm not even very good at it. I can only do small objects; I've never done a perfect human transfiguration without a wand."

"Why a bonsai?"

"Oh—I read a book once," says Marina, embarrassed. Impulsive transfiguration can be a little more revealing of oneself than one means it to be. "I mean, I'll probably never go to Japan—"

Viktor murmurs something that sounds like, "We'll go funny noon." Or maybe, "We'll go fairly soon." Or possibly even, "We'll go for the honeymoon." But Marina can't quite believe that he said that. She stares at him. He rouses himself and says, "Stefan Dobrega knew this technique?"

"He was a genius at it. He turned me into a deer once, almost before I knew what was happening—he had a good reason to," Marina adds hastily when she sees Viktor's expression. "Look, Stefan said it was best to have the experience, just once, of being transformed into every animal in one's transfiguration repertoire, just so one knew how it felt. Then one could judge best which one would wish to face as an opponent. He had a definite preference for rabbits. If he encountered an opponent unexpectedly, with or especially without his wand, with time to think or especially without it, he would have transfigured the attacker into a rabbit. I know it," she asserts. "I just—knew him. That was his reflexive instinct, and he practiced it so often that I can't imagine he would have done otherwise. Of course, eye contact is essential to wandless transfiguration. If Stefan were set upon suddenly from behind—"

"He wasn't," says Viktor with quiet conviction. "I read the autopsy report. He saw what was coming."

Ouch.

Marina didn't read the report. She recalls the blur of officialdom, of interrogations and police reports, of mean-spirited editorials and invasive press coverage, that swallowed up her nineteenth birthday, but she never read the autopsy report. Tomas Cioran read it and told her what he thought she needed to know. She wonders how much mercy mingled with discretion in his summary.

"Well, then, it was someone he trusted," asserts Marina.

Viktor opens the case file and pulls out the list of Stefan's friends and intimates, compiled by the joint investigative committee in the aftermath of his murder. It is not a long list.

"No," says Marina quietly.

"No?"

"I know or knew every person on that list personally. No."

"You think—what do you think?"

"I think it was someone in the Ministry," says Marina.

"A Death Eater in the Romanian Ministry?" says Viktor. "One of the ones who's in custody now, or—"

Marina shakes her head.

"Which?" says Viktor.

"Neither," says Marina. "There wasn't a Dark Mark. I don't what the Bulgarian Death Eaters were like, but the Romanian ones threw the Mark around for fun, even when they hadn't accomplished anything. If they had actually succeeded in murdering Stefan Dobrega there would have been Dark Marks from here to Timisoara."

He eyes her with the utmost pity and horror. "You think it was our side," he says quietly.

She bows her head. That's exactly what she thinks.

They are silent.

"Of course, if the Ministry's voluntarily reopening the case—" says Marina after a minute.

"The Bulgarian Ministry is reopening the case," says Viktor with emphasis. "The Romanians didn't want to."

Then it is pretty much as she thought.

"Marina," says Viktor quietly, "if you already know this, why are you still working there? They're not even paying you."

She says quietly, "Viktor, when they're not paying me, why do you think I stayed?"

He flinches but says nothing. Slovadan would flip if he ever realized why Marina is still working for the Ministry, but Viktor is true to his word, and he gives no words of caution. "All right," he says quietly. "Tell me everything you know."

They sit up till nine o'clock, till ten o'clock, till half-past twelve, going over every page in the case file, every detail of Marina's teenage memories, every minute aspect of Stefan Dobrega's life. He asks about Stefan's household, his relatives, his friends, his enemies, his correspondents, his political allegiances. Cezar is fast asleep, eyes knit shut in his squashed furry face, curled against Viktor's thigh and purring throatily when Viktor finally shoves the bulging file in his briefcase and says, "Marina, is there anything else I ought to know?"

"No," says Marina, "no, I don't think so."

"I don't just mean about this," says Viktor. "I mean about anything."

She considers. He knows about her father and her mother. She has told him by now about Andrej, Marko, and Pavel. He found out for himself about Stefan Dobrega, and she has told him enough tonight for him to understand why she fell off her broom.

"No," says Marina, "no, I think that's everything."

Viktor reaches out to hold her, thinks better of it, trails his hand along hers. He looks at her thoughtfully and says, in his accented but precise Romanian, "The future will be better."

She thinks, promise me. Make it real. Each time, I thought, this is it, this is the end, I have hit bottom now and the pendulum will swing. And the pendulum always swung back to death and disaster and pain . . . She wonders who she would be now, what her life would be like, if she had been born Bulgarian, a pureblood, a Krum.

"They told me," says Viktor, "well, Charlie told me that you get depressed sometimes, that he thinks you regret—do you . . . ?"

She considers. There have been good things in her life. There _are_ good things in her life. It's just that they've come at a very high price.

The sad truth is, she owes most of the best things in her life to her parents' untoward ends. She and Slovadan, who are five years apart in age and not much alike in temperament, would never have been so close if they had come from a happy home. In the wake of her mother's suicide, she was educated gratis by people who felt sorry for her. She is probably the only witch in Europe who ever got two years' private tutelage from Stefan Dobrega. Even Stefan's murder had its uses, in driving her off the dragon internship, where she had landed mainly because it was the path of least resistance, and into jobs where her intellect, her initiative, and her internationalist impulses would have freer reign.

Viktor is a good thing, she thinks suddenly.

The price of Viktor is the end of solitude.

"I know it's a mirage," says Viktor, "but as well one can know another person, I want to know you."

"You will," says Marina. "You do."


	7. A Blizzard in Carpathia

**Chapter 7: A Blizzard in Carpathia**

On Saturday morning, two weeks later, the forecast is heavy snow. Marina takes one look at the frosty gray sky and skips her usual jaunt into Muggle Bucharest. She apparates straight to Transylvania, early enough to join Charlie and Katie for the Saturday morning field survey of the reservation.

Flurries are swirling deliciously in the cold air when they land at the compound and tumble into the mess hall, stomping their feet and laughing, to a sizzling hot lunch. Four hours later, Charlie returns from the afternoon medical round with snow clinging to the knees of his jeans and the tops of his dragonhide boots. "It must be coming down at two or three inches an hour," he announces. "Did Fergal fly or apparate to Constanta?"

"Apparate," says Katie. "He knew the blizzard was coming, said he'd get back sometime tomorrow or first thing Monday morning."

Marina, lounging in front of the fireplace with a book, looks up uncertainly.

"Don't go back tonight," say Slovadan and Katie, almost in one breath. Apparating in a snowstorm is difficult—both wind and precipitation interfere with the air currents that make apparition possible—and flying, of course, is rash and dangerous in a heavy snow.

"No, I'll stay," says Marina, rummaging through her memory to recall whether she still has a spare pair of pajamas in her old room in the bunkhouse. She is interrupted by a loud pop as a slightly bedraggled Viktor steps out of the fireplace.

"Viktor!" exclaim Charlie and Katie together.

"Marina!" exclaims Viktor. "I was hoping you were here. I went by the flat and Mrs. Bogasieru said you'd been out all day. She made some fish cakes for you but she's feeding them to Cezar instead."

Slovadan throws Marina a searching look that means, what was Viktor doing stopping by your flat, without even an invitation, as if he's been there before? Frequently? She ignores him.

"I'm staying the night here," says Marina. "Until the snow stops. I should have told her, but I wasn't sure—"

"You'd better stay the night, too, Viktor," interrupts Katie. "Nasty weather, and the Floo Network always seems to go down in heavy snow—especially on a weekend when the Techniwizards are all off duty."

"Viktor may need to get home tonight," warns Slovadan.

"No, I'll Floo my parents while the Network's still working and tell them not to expect me," says Viktor, "if you're really willing to have me."

"Of course!" says Katie. "You can have Charlie's old room in the bunkhouse. It looks right out on the edge of Minnie's yard—"

"Or you can stay at the Hermitage," says Charlie hastily, seeing the look on Slovadan's face. "I finished the guest room. Chess?"

After dinner Charlie invites Marina back to the Hermitage for coffee. He does not invite Slovadan, who glowers at the departing foursome as he laces up his boots and retires across the courtyard to his cluttered lair on the third floor of the bunkhouse.

At the Hermitage, Charlie and Katie serve up small dishes of piping hot coffee topped with whipped cream and retire tactfully to their own quarters. What transpires next is not the canoodling that the young married couple probably intended to facilitate. Viktor pulls a small notebook out of his pocket and says, "I'm so glad I found you. I was worried that you might be stuck somewhere in the blizzard, and I have a new lead."

Marina, who intuited this development the minute Viktor spun out of the fireplace, nods.

"Did you live with Stefan Dobrega, during the years you were studying with him?"

"No," says Marina. "No, I lived in very carefully chaperoned lodgings in the village, with Tomas and Nina Cioran."

"Why them?" asks Viktor, who knows the names but vaguely.

"Oh," says Marina. "Well, they offered. Tomas was—is—the consulting Healer at the dragon reservation. Nina is a half-blood—a_ foreign_ half-blood—a _German_ half-blood. They—well, they felt sorry for me, and—er—identified, and they invited me to come live with them until I took my NEWTs. Rather conveniently, they lived in the same village as Stefan, on the Tarnave Mare near Sighisoara. Slovadan and the Director thought it was suitable. My lessons were parceled out from there: Stefan taught me Transfiguration and Defense against the Dark Arts; Tomas and Nina taught me Potions and Charms; the Director and Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank taught me Care of Magical Creatures; and once a week I went into Bucharest to see an eccentric old witch, Drina Aureliu, who taught me History of Magic. She was the one who got me the librarian job at the Ministry."

"How often were you at Stefan's house?"

Marina shrugs. "Five, six days a week. I usually took Sundays off, and I sometimes missed Thursdays, if I was late getting back from Bucharest."

"And the days that you did go to Stefan's—did you have regular hours for lessons?"

Marina laughs. "Stefan didn't have regular hours for anything. He was the sort of man who never remembered, at lunchtime, whether or not he had remembered to eat breakfast. I was more of an apprentice researcher than a student. I might be there for an hour, or twelve—as early as dawn and as late as midnight. I wasn't allowed to walk home alone after dark—it was only a hundred yards, and this was before the war started, but even then it wasn't safe—but once I got my Apparition license, I would just apparate back to Tomas and Nina's, however late it was."

"Stefan Dobrega had a housekeeper, right?"

"Izabela," says Marina. "Izabela Dobrega. She was a cousin of sorts, on the father's side—middle-aged, stout, very serious—"

"That's not the name," says Viktor. "Not the housekeeper I had in mind. Do you remember someone named Luiza Spiru?"

Marina purses her lips. "She was one of the interim ones," she says after a minute. "The summer I took my NEWTs, there was a terrible epidemic of vanishing sickness. It was all over Romania. Even one of the ministers, Glad Ursu, came down with it. Izabela caught it around the end of June, just after I took my NEWTs. It took us the better part of three days to find her, and then Stefan sent her off to Blodenheim—that's the wizarding spa in Moravia—"

Viktor nods. Of course. No doubt he's been there, but Marina grew up poor.

"—she had to take a total rest cure, flagons and flagons of flesh-colored dye, for eight weeks straight. Stefan wasn't really up to looking after himself for so long, so there was a series of interim housekeepers. The first one was Madalina something or other. She was fine for household spells but such a dolt, it drove Stefan crazy to be around her. And then just when he was starting to get used to her, she went off suddenly for no apparent reason, and he took on Luiza—I remember now—he said from bad to worse . . ."

"I think she might have had something to do with the murder," says Viktor.

"Luiza Spiru?" says Marina incredulously. "She was practically a Squib. I mean, she could do household spells, after a fashion, but they never came out right. She was only there for about two weeks, and every time I went to see Stefan I had to redo everything that Luiza had done to the house—"

"When you said that you and the housekeeper were the only two people who knew about the defense-by-transfiguration theory, which housekeeper did you mean?" interrupts Viktor.

"I meant Izabela."

"Did the others know anything about it?"

"I can't imagine they did. Madalina never seemed to take in anything, she had difficulty stringing five words into a sentence. Luiza—" Marina hesitates. "You know, I barely remember Luiza. She was sort of a stagy character—different personalities different days—as if she didn't quite like herself and kept changing her mind about who she wanted to be. A big heavy woman with an incipient mustache—"

"How old?" says Viktor.

"Ageless," says Marina. "Well, probably not over fifty. Her looks went fast, if she ever had any, but she moved in a youngish manner—awkward but strong. It was strange to see such a tall, physically powerful woman cast spells so incompetently."

The snow is still swirling outside the windows, and Viktor walks her back to the bunkhouse before the drifts lie too heavily. They light the tips of their wands and burn a narrow path in the snow, now nearly two feet deep, from the Hermitage to the bunkhouse door, where Viktor kisses her good night.

Her bedroom, always kept ready for her weekend visits, is on the top floor of the bunkhouse, across from the chamber that is conventionally known as "Wilhelmina's room," even though Wilhelmina never sleeps there. Marina climbs three dark flights of stairs, lit by torches at wide intervals, prepared to creep into bed. But Slovadan is standing at his chamber door, clad in an ancient blue terry dressing gown that badly needs mending. Marina realizes with a twinge of guilt that it has been months since she did any mending for Slovadan, and years since she actually paid attention to his wardrobe needs. Slovadan himself, so early emancipated, so early the man of the house, is nevertheless virtually incapable of household spells.

"Marina," he says with relief, "I was worried about your getting back safely."

"Viktor walked me back from the Hermitage."

"There was a reason why he came here today, wasn't there?" asks Slovadan quietly. "I mean, not just to see you."

"The Bulgarian Ministry is reopening the Dobrega case."

"Bloody hell, can't he keep you out of it?" cries Slovadan indignantly, for Slovadan thinks much of his little sister and little of Stefan Dobrega.

"Not if he wants to solve it," retorts Marina. "He needs to get inside information somehow. Izabela was sick all that summer, and there was no one else in the house."

"What does he want?"

Marina shrugs. "Names of the interim housekeepers, what sorts of experiments Stefan was doing that summer, his moods and his plans and the appointments he kept—"

"You didn't keep notes?" asks Slovadan, horrifed. "Marina, you promise me—"

"What, and give the Ministry an occasion to search my flat?" retorts Marina. Slovadan knows—has long known— that she suspects Ministry involvement in Stefan's murder, but his response was merely to caution her all the more strongly not to pursue justice. In Romania, half-bloods—especially poor ones—keep their heads down while the Ministry pursues its course. It's easier for those like Slovadan who make lives in which the Ministry has little play.

"Slovadan," says Marina firmly, "you know as well as I do that I never write anything down." She means, of course, anything that could be cited as evidence of subversive political views.

"Good," he says. He says more gently, "Marina, I worry."

She thinks, I worry too. Just because Slovadan is five years older than she is doesn't mean she doesn't worry. Just because Slovadan plays with dragons instead of politics doesn't mean she doesn't worry. She just doesn't voice her fears.

He says, "Are you going to marry Viktor?"

She thinks, when he asks me. If he asks me.

She says, "We haven't been dating very long."

Slovadan says, "I like Viktor." This is news to Marina. Charlie, Katie, and Fergal gave their permission—their enthusiastic permission—long ago. Antonja is ecstatic, and Mrs. Bogasieru is thoroughly intrigued. But Slovadan's dominant demeanor has been one of suspicion. Now, however, Slovadan says thoughtfully, even calmly, "He's all right. He'll take care of you."

"But," he says. She knew there would be a "but." "If you marry Viktor," says Slovadan, "you'll never know peace. He's a famous wizard in this part of the world. His war work is an open secret. And now he's undertaken a special case for the Bulgarian Ministry—"

"It's not really a special case," says Marina. "He's joining the Bulgarian intelligence service."

Slovadan looks at her mournfully. "I like Viktor," he says. "He'll take care of you. At least, I think. But if you marry him, you'll never know peace."

He's right, of course. She was already starting to realize that. She doesn't really need her big brother to tell her. But she thinks, staring down the dark, familiar hall to the bare single bedroom that has punctuated the last eight years, that peace is a little overrated. Peace sounds good when you're miserable. Peace sounds good when someone dies, when someone is eaten, when someone kills herself, when someone is killed.

It sounds no less alluring now, but it sounds much less necessary. There hasn't been peace and there isn't peace and there won't be peace, but if she marries Viktor, there will be Viktor.


	8. Truth

**Chapter 8: Truth**

They've had to give up Friday nights at the Harried Horntail. They have too many things to say now that can't be said in public. Tonight Marina is making dinner in her flat. It is the first time she has ever made dinner like this, for a man, for one man, for Viktor. Viktor surprises her by coming early, with Mr. Weasley's camcorder under his arm.

"Whatever did you bring that for?" asks Marina.

"I fixed it," announces Viktor proudly. "Remember how it wasn't working at the wedding?" He flips open a little plastic flap and says, "Look, no batteries! It runs on spells now. Ennervate!" A red light comes on. "Wingardium Leviosa!" The camcorder levitates at eye level. "Marina Recorda!" The camcorder follows her around the kitchen and films her stuffing cabbage leaves.

"You know," says Marina after a couple minutes, "Charlie was right. This _is_ annoying."

"Let's take it to the reservation tomorrow," says Viktor wickedly, "and film him tending the dragons . . ."

Only when dinner is ready does he put the Muggle toy away. He pours out goblets of the elf-made wine he brought and lights two candles with the tip of his wand as Marina serves the _sarmale_. "Not to talk business over dinner," she says, as he pushes in her chair, "but have you found out anything more . . ."

"It's what I haven't found," says Viktor.

"What haven't you found?"

"Luiza Spiru." He spoons sour cream over the _sarmale_, spears them with his fork, and begins to cut them. "Madalina Moara checked out fine. She's a waitress at the One-Eyed Owl in Sofia now, did you know? And you're right, she is a half-wit. But Luiza Spiru is a woman with no present and no past. Durmstrang has no record of her."

"Well, she was an idiot," points out Marina. "I can hardly believe she attended Durmstrang, much less finished . . ."

"There's a magic quill at Durmstrang that records the birth of every wizarding child in this sector of Europe," says Viktor, "regardless of blood status, intelligence, whatever. It even records Squibs." He hesitates, then says quietly, "Durmstrang has a record of Slovadan. It has a record of you."

Marina holds her peace.

"Maybe it's just as well you didn't go," says Viktor. "We would have been in the same year. You wouldn't have liked me. I was a wild little smart-aleck of a jock for the first four years and a sullen introvert for the last three . . ."

"It wouldn't have been Durmstrang anyway," says Marina, "if I had gone to school. It would have been St. Petersburg. That's the Oblak tradition."

"Your parents didn't want to send you?"

Marina shrugs. "My mother couldn't stand to let either of us go, she was so dependent—and we didn't have any ready cash anyway, by the time Slovadan was eleven. That was the year after they separated. Dad did manage to catch a Portkey back from Peru, once or twice a year, but he never seemed to bring any Galleons with him."

Viktor chews the cabbage leaves. He says, "Marina, these are good. These are really, really good."

Marina has almost forgotten she is holding a fork. She says, "We sold off jewelry for food . . ."

Viktor brushes her hand. She looks down and remembers the food in front of her. Indeed, it is very good.

"It seems like you got a good education anyway," says Viktor after a minute. "I'm not sure the professors at Durmstrang are as good as the people you studied with."

"All the weirdos," murmurs Marina.

Viktor looks concerned.

"I mean, you're right," she says hastily. "I can't imagine that any wizarding school would have given me better instructors than the ones I had. But it was a motley crew of tutors that I ended up with. All the eccentrics, all the witches and wizards on the margins—"

"Stefan Dobrega was internationally famous," protests Viktor. "And the Director is also—"

"Stefan was internationally famous," acknowledges Marina, "and the Romanian Ministry's always been eager to claim him, mainly, I think, because there are so few Romanians who achieve any sort of international renown. But his domestic fame was as much for pure eccentricity as for his transfiguration research. The higher-ups at the Ministry thought he was more than a little odd. They were always petrified that he was going to 'go over to the other side.' Supposedly, that meant the Death Eaters, but in practice, I think they were equally afraid that he might put his talents at the disposal of the Hungarian Ministry, or the Czech Ministry, or the German Ministry, or even set up some kind of rival government in Romania. They were afraid of him, ridiculously, bizarrely afraid of him, and they got to be a little afraid of me as well."

Marina pauses. She sets down her fork, takes a sip of wine, and holds her cold fingers to the candlelight. "Drina Aureliu—the witch who taught me History of Magic—had the same sort of reputation. Eccentric, and she just knew a little too much about Muggles. Drina took me to a cocktail party at the Ministry once, when I was eighteen. I was planning to be a Dragon Keeper then. She didn't like it, she wanted me to do something more intellectual, and she thought she could introduce me to some of the department heads." Viktor nods. "But the evening was a disaster. When we walked in, everyone turned and stared. And then when the conversation finally started again, someone made a reference to the Szechenyi Lanchid, you know, the Chain Bridge in Budapest. And Drina said, 'Oh, I remember when that was blown up by the Nazis.' And Glad Ursu—he's the education minister—turned around and said, 'What's a Nazi?'" Marina lets this sink in. "He didn't know what a Nazi was . . ."

"Annoying," says Viktor.

"I just wanted to sink into the floor," said Marina. "I couldn't decide whether I was angrier at Glad Ursu for not knowing what a Nazi was or at Drina for revealing the sort of oddball Muggle-oriented history instruction I was getting for my NEWTs. I was very young . . ."

"At least you got a real education," says Viktor. "The History of Magic course at Durmstrang was pretty much all about cramming for NEWTs, and hardly anyone took it. The only reason I've heard of Nazis is that I've traveled a bit, and one of my great-uncles went undercover as a Muggle in the Grindelwald War."

"I worked it into my NEWT paper," says Marina. "Just to spite him—and the Ministry of Education. I explained all about Nazis in my essay on the Grindelwald War, and I got an O anyway. But it shows you the sort of tutors I had."

"The Ciorans?" asks Viktor quietly.

"Nina's a half-blood. A _foreign_ half-blood. The neighbors have always looked askance at her, and she's had to ship all the children off to Beauxbatons, one by one, because Durmstrang won't take them. It's—well, it's just like my childhood, except that the Ciorans have a little more money than we did, and there are five kids, all close in age, so they don't get quite so lonely. But Nina's an outcast, and the way people look at Tomas is almost worse. Everyone understands that Nina didn't have a choice about being born a half-blood, but one does have a choice about whom one marries, and Tomas chose to be a blood traitor—"

Viktor laughs.

"Look, would people understand if you married a half-blood?" inquires Marina.

"My parents would," says Viktor quietly. "And my real friends—not the ones from Durmstrang. Actually, I don't really have any friends from Durmstrang anymore. Charlie's probably the closest—it's true, the newspapers would have a field day," he admits. "But they'd get over it."

"No one ever gets over anything in Romania," mutters Marina. "Tomas didn't actually want to be a dragon vet. He trained as a regular Healer. But Romanians are particular about who their Healers are, they don't really want a Healer who married a half-blood, they think he might have funny ideas about blood purity. Tomas and Nina considered moving to Germany, but the competition for Healing jobs there is intense, and Tomas didn't have any special leads or connections. The Director invited him to take one some work at the reservation, and the long and short of it was, he ended up being a creature Healer, specializing in dragons." She is silent for a minute. "Now Petru wants to be a Dragon Keeper, which is going to break his father's heart. Tomas doesn't even like dragons."

"Is the Director also considered odd?" asks Viktor. "I've heard people say things, once or twice, but when I looked up the dragon journals, he seemed to have a very good professional reputation."

"In the dragon community, yes, definitely," says Marina. "He took over the facility thirty years ago and turned it into the best teaching reservation in the world. The Longhorn breeding program is a marvel, too, though the locals don't like it. He's mixing blood stocks," she explains. "That's why the more traditional Dragon Keepers, like my Vasik cousins, broke off and formed smaller independent reservations. But yes, his professional reputation is very good. What people don't like is his attitude towards part-humans and non-humans—he's said to be a little too friendly. There was a rumor going around, during the war, that he had a couple of half-giants staying at the reservation." She hesitates. "It was true, actually— they're friends of Charlie's—"

"Yes, I've met them," says Viktor.

"Well, ironically, most of the Transylvanian witches and wizards didn't believe the rumor was true, but they disliked him for it anyway," says Marina. "They all said that it was exactly the sort of thing he _would_ do, even if he wasn't actually doing it. And then there's—well, you've probably noticed—"

Viktor looks inquisitive.

"Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank is here rather a lot," says Marina quietly.

"Yes," says Viktor. "I have noticed."

"So have all the neighbors," says Marina. "They all know she's worked off and on at Hogwarts, which has a pretty dodgy reputation in these parts, and they think she's no better than she ought to be, and too old to boot—for the sort of sin they assume she's engaging in, that is. It's the talk of Transylvania."

"They shouldn't make so many assumptions," agrees Viktor.

"No, no, though—well, it's true," says Marina. "They can't marry. We thought they might, when Hagrid went back to Hogwarts, in the first year of the war, and Wilhelmina came back here. Charlie and Fergal teased the Director about it so much that in the end he told the boys and me. You see, his first wife—I mean, legally, his only wife, when he was a young man and he was still living in Holland—well, she was—"

Viktor looks expectant, and she can see he's thinking, "Muggle."

"She was a mermaid," says Marina quietly. Viktor chokes on his surprise. "It didn't answer," says Marina, thinking that the Director must have been a very, very, very idealistic young wizard ever to imagine that it would. "She went back to her people."

"I see," murmurs Viktor wonderingly.

"That was forty years ago, and he has no idea where she is now. He's completely lost track of her. But they're still legally married, and merpeople's lifespans are just as long as wizards', and there's no reason to think she isn't still alive. So his hands are tied, and they'll probably never be able to marry."

Marina takes a deep breath and lets this information sink in. The Director is not yet seventy, Wilhelmina not much older, and they have decades ahead of them. Fifty years is a long time in which to not be married to the woman you love, to slink around illicitly, facing the constant peril of a Hobson's choice between one's chosen partner and one's chosen career.

"This is in confidence, of course, Viktor. They've told some of their friends, but it absolutely cannot get into the press, nor come to the attention of any of the higher-ups at the Ministry. Romanians do _not_ like marriages between wizards and magical creatures. If the Director had married a veela, they _might_ forgive him—at least the men might—Romanian wizards are crazy about veela. But a mermaid doesn't have the same cachet. The only reason the Director's lasted this long in Romania is that the reservation's funding comes mostly from abroad and the Ministry couldn't easily get rid of him. But if they found out he had married a mermaid, they'd chase him out of the country. He'd be lucky if they didn't lynch him."

"That bad?" says Viktor, half-worried, half-amused.

Marina sighs. "There's a lot of pent-up anger here. The Romanian wizarding community has a lot of unsavory associations—vampires especially, but other things too. Too many people picked the wrong side in the last three wars, and even the ones who picked the right side didn't come out looking good. Too many people were killed, too much property, too many archives, too much of the communications network was destroyed. The wizarding quarter is a shambles and the Ministry is bankrupt. So there's a lot of pent-up anger and suspicion, against blood traitors, against half-bloods, against foreigners, against part-humans and magical creatures of 'near human intelligence.' Sooner or later it's going to break out in violent form."

"I wish I could take you away from all this," says Viktor.

"Do you really think that's a good idea?" asks Marina tartly. "I'm sorry—it's just—you'd be a blood traitor too. It stalled my father's career, and the marriage didn't even turn out well. He left his family and took a dangerous job on another continent and got killed for his pains. Marrying Nina nearly ruined Tomas's career. The dragon healing job was a lucky break for him, and he's very good at it, but he still regrets not getting to do the work he actually trained for. In his case, at least, his wife and children have been a consolation, but still— so isolated all the time, so little security, so many difficulties about the children's education—." She breaks off. "I'm grateful," she says. "I'm very, very grateful, and just very—very." Very inarticulate and very about to tear up. Very much in love and very astonished that something like this is happening in my life. "But," she says miserably, "I'm not sure I'm worth it."

"You are," says Viktor.

Marina rubs her eye and bites her lip.

"I'm not a pureblood anyway," says Viktor quietly. "We pose."

Marina does a double-take, because she thought she knew Viktor, and she did not see this coming.

"My great-grandfather had an affair with a Muggle," says Viktor, "at the same time that he was married to my great-grandmother. It's—well, it's not something we talk about. They had a child together, and my great-grandfather persuaded his wife to adopt him and raise him with her own children. It must have been very difficult for her, but she knew how poor his prospects were otherwise. Bulgarian attitudes towards half-bloods have changed a lot since the First War, but a century ago—and especially for a half-blood with a Muggle mother and no father in evidence—well, you can imagine."

Marina nods. Indeed, she can imagine.

"So she took the child, and the child was my grandfather, and I—well, I'm only seven-eighths."

"I'm more pureblooded than you are," murmurs Marina wonderingly.

"Yes," says Viktor, "and our children—"

Marina holds her breath.

"Mental arithmetic is one thing I am _not_ good at," says Viktor.

"Twenty-nine thirty-seconds," says Marina wonderingly. "Twenty-nine thirty-seconds."


	9. Springtime in Dobruja

**Chapter 9: Springtime in Dobruja **

Marina still doesn't want to see the swans on Lake Bled, but she agrees to a weekend in Dobruja.

The Krums live south of the Danube, south of the rolling fertile Danubian plain, in the foothills of the Stara Panina, in a dacha looking east toward Cape Emine. Marina has never seen such splendor, not well-kept, not up close. For a wizarding home, it is modern, uncomplicated, discreet. So too are Dimitar and Anastasia Krum. Their distinction lies not in their blood status, their connections, or their Durmstrang credentials, but in their careless unconcern for all these things. Their wealth lies not in their starkly understated chateau but in their freedom from striving. Marina has never met two people who seem so at ease in their own skin.

After dinner, after his parents retire, Viktor says, "Wait here." He returns quickly, bearing a package, and her heart sinks, because it's much too big for what she would like it to be.

He is holding a small red plastic box inset with two chunky knobs and a small gray screen.

"What is that?" asks Marina.

"It's an Etch-a-Sketch," says Viktor. "Muggles give them to children. American Muggles, anyway. It took me a long time to get one."

Marina stares at the Muggle gimcrack. "What's the point?" she asks.

"Turn the knobs," says Viktor. She turns the knobs and a rough picture begins to take shape on the screen.

"Wouldn't it just be easier to draw something with a quill?" asks Marina.

"Yes," says Viktor. "Much easier, and much more artistic. I don't know why Muggles bother with these things. I suppose their brains are so addled with longing for magic that they'll take an interest in any roundabout means of doing anything. But this isn't a Muggle Etch-a-Sketch anymore. I charmed it."

He taps the machine lightly with his wand and says, " Marina is 5-foot-7. She has silky dark brown hair, almost black, which she wears in coronet braids. Several curls are escaping on the left side of her face. She has lovely almond-shaped brown eyes, an aquiline nose, and a slender, sensitive mouth. When she smiles, she doesn't show her teeth. No, her face is more slender than that—and there's a freckle next to her right eye—." As he speaks, a portrait of Marina—a surprisingly detailed one—takes shape on the screen.

Marina smiles. She says, "Nice trick."

Viktor says, "Show me what Marina would look like with a short haircut. No, a bob. A bit longer—yes. Show me what Marina would look like if she were ten years younger. Show me what Marina would look like if she were ten years older." The Etch-a-Sketch obeys his every command.

"How on earth did you do this?" asks Marina.

Viktor shrugs. "I have a lot of free time," he says. "Even with the intelligence gig. I really need a job." He says, "I was in England last week, and I went to see George Weasley. He explained to me how the Patented Daydream Charms work. This is a similar concept. The Daydream Charm identifies several crucial elements, and then it builds a story or a sketch around them, making repeated minor modifications until the consumer is satisfied . . ."

"Well," says Marina, "it's a neat toy."

Viktor says, "It's not just a toy." He taps the Etch-a-Sketch and erases it. "Now," he says quietly, "describe Luiza Spiru."

Marina inhales sharply. "You still think—"

"Just give it a try," says Viktor.

Marina describes Luiza Spiru. It's hard work, describing someone she knew slightly, liked little and heeded less, nearly six years ago, but she is astonished by the accuracy of the image that slowly emerges on the screen.

Viktor scrutinizes it. He says, "It looks like a man in disguise."

"So it does," says Marina, who can hardly believe she didn't notice at the time. She must have been younger, less experienced than she realized, at eighteen.

"Take off the rouge," says Viktor to the Etch-a-Sketch. "Remove the earrings. Give Luiza a crewcut. Mmm—not quite so short. Maybe a little beard."

A ghostly ripple of recognition seizes Marina.

"No beard," she says. "Just stubble. Sideburns. Tint the hair brown. A small moustache."

And all of a sudden they're staring into the complacent, gloating face of Education Minister Glad Ursu.

"He hated Stefan," says Marina faintly, after a minute. "Professional jealousy. It was ridiculous—Minister Ursu is the one who's had the grand political career, the one who's reeled in all the gold. Some people think he's going to become the next Minister of Magic. Stefan was just an eccentric old scholar—never had much to do with the Ministry, except in an advisory capacity. It's the most ridiculous, wasteful, infantile—"

"Is it possible?" asks Viktor quietly. "Luiza Spiru was in Professor Dobrega's household for almost a month. Wouldn't people have noticed if the Education Minister had been absent from his post that long? Or do you think he could have combined the two roles?"

Marina shakes her head. "There was an epidemic of vanishing sickness that summer, remember? Glad Ursu was down with it, or so his family gave out. He must have been absent from work for at least six weeks."

"And he cornered Professor Dobrega by the Danube—"

"And Stefan would have been so shocked, when he realized what was happening, that it slowed down his reaction time and prevented him from transfiguring his attacker." Marina pauses. "Stefan was a gentle man, a little old-fashioned, with old-fashioned ideas about women. He spent all his time worrying about Death Eaters, and he always pictured them as male. He would have found it hard to believe his housekeeper was attacking him. I wish," she says, "I wish Stefan had been just a little more worldly. I wish he had known just a little bit more about life."

"I wonder if I can prove it," says Viktor.

"Probably not," mutters Marina morosely.

"I can show the evidence to the head of Bulgarian intelligence," says Viktor, "and we can confront Minister Ursu with it. The identification, at least, is unmistakable. He'll have a lot of explaining to do."

"Yes," says Marina glumly, "but I don't think you'll get a conviction."

"Well," says Viktor hopefully, "maybe at least we can oust him from his post."

Eventually, very late, they both go to bed, but Marina can't sleep. Solving the mystery that has plagued her for five and a half years ought to be a relief, but her mind is working double-time, as one element after another clicks into place. She peers into her future with an unaccustomed, unnerving sense of freedom. At half past four she gives sleep up as a bad job, seizes her wand from the bedside table, and reluctantly whispers, "Alohomora!" She dons a dressing gown and slippers and slips out onto the terrace.

Viktor is sitting silently in a decrepit lawn chair, watching the rosy wings of dawn slip over the horizon.

He turns, and she says, "I couldn't sleep either."

He nods. She walks to the parapet, leans out, and stares into the darkness, in which it is just beginning to be possible to distinguish the shapes of mountains, trees, and buildings. After a minute Viktor joins her at the parapet. He says, very softly, "Move here?"

Marina thinks for a minute. "Cezar too?" she asks.

"Cezar too."

"I'd have to quit my job," she says. "At least the Romanian one."

"You're quitting anyway, aren't you, now?" says Viktor.

"Yes."

"Do something worthwhile," says Viktor. "Write a textbook on wandless transfiguration. Write a memoir of Stefan Dobrega. Figure out how to get the Romanians to sign the International Ban on Duelling."

"Or I could just start a Muggle-news-for-wizards service," says Marina.

"Or that," says Viktor. "Merlin knows we could use it, out here . . ."

They stare into the darkness.

"Slovadan would think it's improper," she warns.

"I'll fix Slovadan," says Viktor. "Do you want a diamond or goblin-wrought?"

Marina lets the moment sink in.

"Or is it too soon?" he asks when she is silent.

"Not too soon," murmurs Marina.

His body is brushing against hers in all sorts of ways that have always frightened her, when it happened before, whether with Viktor or another man, but tonight, in this setting, in Viktor's home, she is starting to enjoy herself, and she doesn't pull away. She waits, with some curiosity, to see what he will do next.

He says, " Marina, is this all right?"

She nods, and he pulls her closer, and she presses against him.

He whispers, " Marina, I love you." It always angered her when her parents said that, her mother especially, in the maudlin intervals between the anger and the silence, but Viktor has earned the right to say it, and she doesn't draw back. She whispers, "I love you, too," so softly that she cannot hear her own voice, but Viktor hears it, and he holds her tight as the sun begins to rise on the Dobrujan spring.


End file.
